This invention relates to novel polyaryleneamines and a process for producing them. The polyaryleneamines of the invention have such a structure that tertiary arylamino groups are bound in series and, hence, they are useful as structural materials that are improved in heat resistance, solvent resistance and other properties.
Known polymeric materials having high resistance to heat and solvents include thermosetting resins such as phenolics and epoxies, and engineering plastics such as polyphenylene terephthalamides, polyimides, polyether ether ketone, polyphenylene sulfides and liquid-crystal polymers. These polymers are used as structural materials in various fields.
A novel polymer was proposed in Chem. Lett., pp. 1135-1136, 1996 and it is a polyaryleneamine produced by aminating an aryl dihalide and a piperazine or piperidine derivative in the presence of both a base and a catalyst consisting of palladium chloride and a tris(o-tolylphosphine) ligand.
The thermosetting resins mentioned above have high heat resistance but the rate of their production is not very high. The engineering plastics are difficult to process by melting techniques except special ones such as melt spinning. Some engineering plastics are easy to process by ordinary melting techniques but their heat resisting performance is not satisfactory. The manufacture of the engineering plastics involves various other problems such as the difficulty in the synthesis of monomers, the need to perform polymerization in special solvents, the need for high temperatures during polymerization reaction and the low efficiency in the production of shaped articles.
The polymer disclosed in Chem. Lett., pp. 1135-1136, 1996 which is composed of an aryl dihalide and an alicyclic amine (i.e., piperazine or piperidine derivative) is low in heat resistance.